In a candid interview on the popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast, tech billionaire and Trump supporter Elon Musk voiced strong criticism of the corporate media and what he sees as growing censorship and authoritarianism from the political left.
During his wide-ranging conversation with host Joe Rogan, Elon Musk expressed deep concern about the state of free speech and open debate in America. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO accused the corporate media of misleading the public, particularly “low-information voters,” through selectively edited narratives and sound bites taken out of context.
Musk argued that this media manipulation is especially prevalent in coverage of former President Donald Trump. He cited examples like the misrepresentation of Trump’s “very fine people” comment regarding the Charlottesville protests, definitely exposed as a hoax by Breitbart News’ Joel Pollak, and a misleading campaign ad from Vice President Kamala Harris that implied Trump was against women’s rights by clipping his statements on border security.
“They’ll take like not even a full sentence … and then push it on every ad, every speaking event, every media,” Musk said of the tactic of presenting Trump’s words out of context. He called out former President Barack Obama for recently resurfacing the Charlottesville story, which Musk and Rogan called a “flat-out lie” designed to demonize Trump.
Beyond Trump, Musk claimed that his own companies have been unfairly targeted by authorities who decide on a target first and then find a pretext to investigate later. “They decided SpaceX was the target,” Musk said. “They just figured out the crime afterwards.” He compared this approach to that of Lavrentiy Beria, the notorious secret police chief under Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
But Musk reserved his harshest criticism for what he sees as the political left’s shift towards censorship and authoritarianism, especially when it comes to open discussion and debate. The world’s richest man said he previously aligned with progressive values but now feels the Democratic party has become oppressive and hostile towards free speech. Since then, Musk has endorsed President Trump for re-election.
“If they’re trying to suppress people’s ability to communicate, they’re only doing that because they want to do things that people don’t want them to do,” Musk declared. He argued that efforts by the left to silence opposition on certain topics reflect an agenda to control the narrative and manipulate public opinion.
Musk pointed to the media’s handling of Trump’s recent rally at Madison Square Garden as an example, slamming MSNBC for comparing the event to a Nazi gathering despite the diverse crowd in attendance. “They try to call the rally at Madison Square Garden like a Nazi rally. I’m like, yo, there was like literally an Israeli flag in the audience. I think like a quarter of the speakers were Jewish. Like there were people of every race, color, creed, religion at that rally,” he noted.
Following the interview, Joe Rogan endorsed Trump via a post on Musk’s X platform.
https://twitter.com/joerogan/status/1853614670764015762
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
